Tiffany Mitchell, 27, said she did not see what led up to the shooting, but said she arrived right before the fatal shots were fired.

“As I was coming around, I heard the tires squeaking on the truck, and as I get closer, I see them tussling through the window. The kid was pulling off and the cop was pulling in,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell told News 4 she saw a door close on a police car. An officer was inside and Brown, Jr. was on the outside. She said the two were arm wrestling through the car window. Mitchell said she then tried to pull out her phone to record. Shots then rang out.

“It just didn’t look right for them to be arm wrestling,” Mitchell said. “The first gun shot came from the window, so I just started getting out of the way.”

According to Mitchell, Brown, Jr, began to run away after the first shot was fired.

“After the shot, the kid just breaks away. The cop follows him, kept shooting, the kid’s body jerked as if he was hit. After his body jerked he turns around, puts his hands up, and the cop continues to walk up on him and continues to shoot until he goes all the way down,” Mitchell said.

From the two witnesses, the story is becoming clear. The cop pulled up, told them to get the fuck on the sidewalk, they said something to the effect of they were almost to their destination, cop backed the truck up, asked “what did you say?” and reached through the driver side window and pulled Brown in, Brown tried to get away, cop pulled his gun and shot once from the car, then hunted down and executed him. And I bet the forensics will demonstrate the distances from which Brown was shot, which is why they have not released the autopsy report.

https://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpg00John Colehttps://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpgJohn Cole2014-08-13 19:01:572014-08-13 19:11:55What in the Hell is Wrong with this Country?

I am happy to report that patriot citizen militias from around the nation have rallied in Ferguson, MO, as they did the Bundy Ranch, to seek relief for our fellow citizens from an out of control dictatorial gov….er…never mind, this didn’t happen. I guess they’re busy.

meanwhile, in the City of Angels, a 24 year old “mentally challenged” (words of his family) man was shot and killed by police. Apparently there was a struggle but details are sketchy at this point. There’s supposed to be a rally at LAPD headquarters this weekend, let’s see if SWAT shows up or not.

What do these cops think they’re doing by standing on top of an armored vehicle pointing guns at protestors? How is that helping anything? Is it helping the community? The family of the slain boy? Themselves? I can’t see how it’s good.

@flapjack: Jesus … Can we get a more evolved view. Maybe your sister pancake would like to weigh in? Cousin waffle got an opinion? Your brother crepe got something to say?

St. Louis has always had a fucked up racial dynamic. My 90 year old world war two vet dad grew up there. Came home in uniform and after what he endured, left for New York City. Glad we got him out of there.

Although, I wouldn’t put past the PD to say that Brown was charging backwards at the officer.

Constable [….] I clearly saw the defendant … doing whatever he’s accused of…Red-handed. When kicked… he said: ‘It’s a fair … cop, I done it all … Right… no doubt about… that’. Then, bound as he was to the chair, he assaulted myself and three other constables while bouncing around the cell. The end.

I am happy to report that patriot citizen militias from around the nation have rallied in Ferguson, MO, as they did the Bundy Ranch, to seek relief for our fellow citizens from an out of control dictatorial gov….er…never mind, this didn’t happen. I guess they’re busy.

And where are the apostles of liberty from First Look Media with their guerrilla journalism?

You would think that champions of the first amendment might have something to say about protesters getting gassed and having guns trained on them. Maybe they just haven’t heard about it yet.

The police chief is now saying the cop and kid scuffled before the first shot, and the kid punched the cop in the face. “The side of his face is swollen,” according to the chief. I don’t know what happened, but there are at least two credible witnesses I’ve seen who say the unarmed kid had his hands up when he was fatally shot. As for armored personnel carriers rolling through American cities with Rambo’d-out cops pointing guns at Americans…sickening. Just sickening and horrible.

These fuckers aren’t careful, they’re going to end up with an Amritsar massacre on their hands.

(Got accused of ‘hyperbole” for posting that on LGF, but I stand by it.)

Here’s a scary fact: the so-called SWAT teams for a lot of towns aren’t the highly trained specialists of TV and movies. They’re beat cops who volunteer to do a couple extra days of training a month for a few extra bucks and the chance to play with bigger guns than usual. One of these guys gets trigger happy, you’re going to have a lot of dead black people on the news, and then the shit is gonna get real.

St. Louis has always had a fucked up racial dynamic. My 90 year old world war two vet dad grew up there. Came home in uniform and after what he endured, left for New York City. Glad we got him out of there.

Yup.

The Lou is a poster city for the white flight phenomenon. Ferguson used to be a white flight enclave. Now they’re moving further out to exurbs to like St. Charles.

The police chief is now saying the cop and kid scuffled before the first shot, and the kid punched the cop in the face. “The side of his face is swollen,” according to the chief. I don’t know what happened, but there are at least two credible witnesses I’ve seen who say the unarmed kid had his hands up when he was fatally shot. As for armored personnel carriers rolling through American cities with Rambo’d-out cops pointing guns at Americans…sickening. Just sickening and horrible.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the shooter had one of his buddies on the force pop him in the face a couple times to help with his story.

@Betty Cracker: Well that’s the thing, isn’t? In Wayne LaPierre’s America, they aren’t really Americans. All of their expectations and assumptions tell them that the people who constitute 2/3 of their town’s population are sub-human aliens who will turn to violence in a heartbeat if not kept firmly under the heel of the Real Americans who constitute The Thin Blue (or, you know, Beige, whatever) Line.

That’s why they have people on top of trucks with sniper rifles in the middle of the crowd. Because in their minds, it’s inevitable that sooner or later, someone’s going to pull out a gun and start shooting. And when that happens, *BLAM* the Good Guy with a gun will take down the Bad Guy with a single perfectly aimed shot.

And then, of course, the whole thing descends into Amritsar, but the long laid Bush era Homeland Security pork Emergency Response Plan they’re working to doesn’t really discuss that part.

@Betty Cracker: Well that’s the thing, isn’t? In Wayne LaPierre’s America, they aren’t really Americans. All of their expectations and assumptions tell them that the people who constitute 2/3 of their town’s population are sub-human aliens who will turn to violence in a heartbeat if not kept firmly under the heel of the Real Americans who constitute The Thin Blue (or, you know, Beige, whatever) Line.

That’s why they have people on top of trucks with sniper rifles in the middle of the crowd. Because in their minds, it’s inevitable that sooner or later, someone’s going to pull out a gun and start shooting. And when that happens, *BLAM* the Good Guy with a gun will take down the Bad Guy with a single perfectly aimed shot.

And then, of course, the whole thing descends into Amritsar, but the long laid Bush era Homeland Security pork Emergency Response Plan they’re working to doesn’t really discuss that part.

A Texas gun rights advocacy group plans to hold a walk Saturday in Houston’s historically African-American Fifth Ward. Members of Open Carry Texas told Local 2 Investigates that they plan to walk through Fifth Ward neighborhoods to educate people on their Second Amendment rights.
…
“We’ve done 2,000 of these walks that haven’t been in Fifth Ward. It’s not like we just decided, ‘Hey, let’s wave guns around and go to a black neighborhood and do it,'” said Amad.

Amad said the group’s message is simply to educate all Americans about gun rights. He also said he’s seen African-Americans treated differently than whites during similar events where people openly carry weapons in support of the Second Amendment.

“I don’t need a brick to fall out of the sky to tell me that there’s some kind of racism involved, and I don’t like racism,” said Amad.

Houston African-American community activists aren’t very happy about the proposed march and suggests they stay home. The response:

“The black community has got its butt kicked for quite some time. We’re going there to help with that, to help put a stop to that. Why in the world wouldn’t he want us to come?” said Amad.

@Baud: I think when the people “requesting” are armed to the teeth it undermines the sense of “request”. So if “nothing will be done” why have the SWAT teams and other militarized police forces out there? Oh, and this might be relevant:

FOX2now @FOX2now · 53m
Police Bull Horn, “There will be arrests if you do not clear the street NOW” pic.twitter.com/tRkJ6h4krq

@Villago Delenda Est: And I think the lying is going to get more intense. I just don’t see how this is a justifiable shooting and my heart breaks for Mr. Brown’s family and friends. I cannot imagine just walking along, minding my own business and then being cursed at and then shot down like an animal. And then left to rot in the streets for 4 hours.

Why wasn’t an ambulance called to take him to the hospital right after the shooting?

Watching the hideous right-wing reaction to child refugees at the border, the Jim Crow-like response of police to African Americans, particularly AA young men, all I can think of if a song from my Sunday School days: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

‘the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances’ clearly is N/A here. Wonder why anyone accepts this.
What is the difference between these people and others? What, oh what could it be?

@different-church-lady: They released the audio dispatch tapes. Gawker has the two hours of tapes. Since I didn’t listen to the tape, I just copied and pasted a few of the dispatches.
Supposedly the Anonymous group is going to release the name of the officer this weekend. I don’t agree with that.

If the news media is not going to do their job, then I have no problem when information is released another way.

The police chief is now saying the cop and kid scuffled before the first shot, and the kid punched the cop in the face. “The side of his face is swollen,” according to the chief.

So why in the world wouldn’t they release the results of autopsy yesterday? Why didn’t they interview the witness right away? Hell, it seems that they immediately automatically decided to believe their own cop and totally dismissed the black witness.

You know what I think happened? I think I wasn’t there and neither were any of the rest of us, so none of us knows. I know what I fear, I know what I suspect, and I know that place, I have stood on that street corner, I know the people who live there, and I am tired and I want everyone to take a deep breath and….

Decided to check out the NBC Nightly News to see what the MSM take is on the story. It’s third or fourth down the list of stories. They sent a black guy to cover it (Ron Allen), and they showed footage of white men buying guns in a gun shop owned by a white man. Sales are apparently up 50% and the owner says, “People are taking personal responsibility for the situation.” They also interviewed a black family where the mom said she was ready to take her kids and go. “It’s scary,” she says. I bet it is.

@Patrick: You can’t assume they believe “their own cop”–they are choosing not to find out that he was, of course, lying to them and murdered the kid in cold blood. But they have to know that he did. Refusing to interview the witnesses is proof that they simply prefer to remain in ignorance in order to better push the cops story.

By all accounts, [Michael] Brown was One Of The Good Ones. But laying all this out, explaining all the ways in which he didn’t deserve to die like a dog in the street, is in itself disgraceful. Arguing whether Brown was a good kid or not is functionally arguing over whether he specifically deserved to die, a way of acknowledging that some black men ought to be executed.

@JPL: NPR interviewed the one black councilperson in Ferguson today. It was a pretty good interview. The last question they asked her was how, in a town of 20,000 people, no one would know the name of the cop. Her reply was that basically ‘Oh, everybody knows the name of the cop who did it….everybody knows his name.’ Is was kind of a chilling way to end the interview. I’m glad that NPR is starting to always refer to Brown as an unarmed man who was gunned down by the police.

Benjamin L. Crump, a lawyer representing the Brown family, said that arrangements were being made for a private autopsy to be performed in the next week or so. ​ “The family wants an autopsy done by somebody who is objective and who does not have a relationship with the Ferguson police,” Mr. Crump said.

​
Given the circumstances, that seems like a very good idea. I dread to think how much a private autopsy will cost.

@Francis:
From that image, it’s hard to to be sure, even embiggened and blown up in up in an image editor. But if you root around in e.g. google images (show past 24 hours) you’ll find a few of that truck (or one like it) with guys with guns on top. (one linked by tulip at comment 12)

@efgoldman:
You are so right about how Boston has changed. I commute every day on the train, and the diversity is really fucking amazing. Boston has become a magnet and a beacon for smart tolerant educated people from around the world, and the city looks really beautiful now with the Rose Kennedy Greenway all done. That Greenway has been full every day this summer with happy tourist families of every nationality, and it hasn’t hurt that the weather has been great.

@efgoldman: @the Conster: But riding the T — or Chicago’s El — as a visitor or a suburban commuter is not the same as living in those cities. I’m glad you guys are saying Boston’s changed, but I’d be curious to hear from some Bostonians of color on that. Plenty of white people visiting (and living in) my own city of Chicago think we’re all super-liberal and post-racism, but the everyday reality is different for black and Latino families trying to stay safe, get their kids educated, buy houses (yes, steering still goes on), get their garbage picked up, shop for food and otherwise live their lives.

@shortstop: I know that, even as a frequent visitor to your city, I seldom get too far south of the Museum of Science and Industry. To be realistic, it’s in the Loop up through Lincoln Park and places like Wrigleyville that most white liberal types spend their time. Maybe a foray elsewhere for a cool club if they want to feel brave.

@tbone: It was the police chief’s son, with a confederate flag on the wall. Of course, I don’t know whether that was the police chief’s son or some other random white twenty-something.

I also read that the police chief’s wife had posted crappy racist stuff on Facebook, but I’m not on FaceBook and just have some unknown person’s word to go by. And Anonymous is supposed to announce salacious gossip about the police chief’s daughter, if the murdering cop’s name isn’t announced today or tomorrow or yesterday.

Looking at these pictures from the point of view of someone who has been living outside of the US for a few years, and is no longer used to seeing such body-building culture, the pumped up arms on the cops are pretty astonishing. Even at rest the muscles on the forearms are rippling.

Are all these guys juiced? That might explain some of the unstable personalities on display.

@Xenos: I see the same thing up here in Canada. Most of the local OPP officers that I have seen look like they are working out in the weight room when they are not on duty. Perhaps that is from constantly wearing body armour and hoisting heavy artillery?

The female officers are the only ones who look normal [ie. not pumped].

And by the way, despite a few highly publicized and horrifying incidents where cops have been shot by certified [right wing] nut jobs, there is very little reason for our local OPP to wear body armour when on duty IMO.